st_ouennais

Train time again. Being a Sunday, the train is a little earlier this time. It also departs from platform 7 for a change. What excitement!

I don't think I've written a proper entry since late August. So much has happened since then. Here's a round up.

We saw Tori Amos in Glasgow. She was great but sadly, Marna had a headache.

Then came the cat. I finally gave into Marna's demands for a moggy on the condition that I didn't have any nasty reactions. I didn't. What ultimately made it happen was that it was Echo and Dani's cat, Peach, being passed onto us because they couldn't handle so many themselves. She's an adorable wee thing.

Dylan came to stay while his mom and aunt stayed in a B&B. We did Stirling Castle, the Wallace Monument, Castle Campbell, Dunkeld, the Edradour distillery in Pitlochry and Blair Atholl, before spending a couple of nights in Glasgow, or Paisley to be precise. There, we saw the House of an Art Lover, went bowling, did some shopping, had dinner with Dylan's friend and got rather drunk with our host at an Irish pub. Okay, only me and Dylan's aunt Leslie did the latter. No drunk Dylan pics, I'm afraid. ;-)

Then it was down to London, where I met our new developer, Mark. We also have another new developer called Pascal but he lives in Germany, so we haven't met yet. Matt and I got rather drunk and he ended up staying in my hotel room! Only because there was an extra bed, mind. :-P

David came to stay for a couple of nights, unfortunately sans Ellie but for the very good reason that she is now pregnant! I am truly delighted for them both. His stay included the pub, a lovely roast at the carvery, Gish, Wii Sports Resort, and bizarrely, a visit to a monestary. Strange but true. As you probably guessed, Marna didn't join us for that. :-P

Next up was a fabulous evening's entertainment at the Perth Concert Hall by the legendary Mr Tim Minchin. Marna was in fits of laughter. I was in fits of agony, no thanks to a deadly combo of headache, toothache and stomach ache, brought on by a wisdom tooth infection and a bout of food poisoning. I didn't let it spoil what was otherwise an excellent night but I did have an emergency dental appointment the very next day.

Ech tired now. More soon.

Last week I was in London, and at a Tube stop I found a Financial Times supplement called The Future of Energy. It had basic articles on all different sources of energy and energy issues and talked about the crunch between rising demand and climate change, but some of the information was new and interesting. You can see a pretty good summary of them at that link above. The FT website only allows you to view two articles a month (!?) but you can register for free if you want to read more. As a whole it's coming from a pro-free market business perspective, so raised my eyebrow a few times, but I respect that its factual. Here's a little from an article about peak oil and oil supply, which again features some interesting facts about new drilling technology and finds on the part of the oil companies, but I cant copy and paste any more because I've used up my two article quota. But you should be able to read it all!

Crisis averted?

A number of factors will determine whether the supply of oil can match future demand, writes Carola Hoyos

The drop in oil demand due to the world economic downturn, and recent oil exploration successes in Brazil, the US and west Africa, may have allayed fears that the world is running out of oil, but prices could rise once again as the economy recovers and demand outstrips supply.

That is exactly what happened in the summer of 2008, when oil prices surged to records of $147 a barrel as oil producers pumped as much oil as they could, but still failed to quench the thirst of the growing Chinese economy.

I see, via Constantly Furious, that the Paul Clarke 'help-the-police-and-go-to-jail' story is now on Twitter and turning into quite a brushfire. The MSM don't seem to have noticed anything yet. They did, however, notice that Scottish Labour want to make possession of a knife a strict liability offence with a mandatory prison sentence (via Samizdata).

Glasgow North East contains a fair number of people who like to smoke, drink and carry a knife. Oh dear, folks, look who you've just voted for.

This Christmas, if you were considering buying someone a set of kitchen knives, don't. Or a saw, plain or electric. Chisels, potato peelers, junior hacksaws, anything that has a bladed edge over 3 inches long and doesn't fold is illegal to have in your possession on the street and Labour want to send you to jail simply for having it. What you intended to do with it is irrelevant. Taking a 12" pruning saw to loan to your pal down the road? Irrelevant. Possession equals prison. No defence.

Ah, you say, but if I just bought it, it's still in its plastic packet and I have the receipt. I'm just carrying it home. Even if you carry it to the police station, you'll get arrested. There is no excusable reason for carrying it because it's a strict liablility offence and you go to jail. At the moment it's legal to have these things in your home (if you can get them there) as long as you don't step outside with them. At the moment.

What the hell, eh? Who's going to know if you have anything like that in your house? As long as you don't take it outside, no problem, right?

Better get hinges on that wall panelling because you'll need to hide a lot of things behind it when this lot come round. Note that this is to prevent 'unintentional injuries'. It is not targeted at child abusers. It is targeted at you.

About 100,000 children are admitted to hospital each year for home injuries at a cost of £146m.

Approximate and most likely hugely inflated number - check. For the cheeeldren - check. Costs the NHS millions - check. Same techniques, recognised by smokers, drinkers and fat people everywhere by now. Well folks, it's rollout time. Now you are all smokers, drinkers, and fatties. Now you can all be censured, fined and punished at will and you'll have no comeback at all. Welcome to our world.

Take another look at Al-Jahom's link. Scroll down the list of Righteous organisations involved. Pretty much all of them. This is supposed to be about children's safety in the home - the national audit commission? The bicycle helmet initiative trust? The department for transport? What in Hell's name are 'the centre for excellence in outcomes' or the 'council for subject associations'? These sound like something the Daily Mash made up! This is a massed Righteous association of vicious, spiteful people who are making one big push for total control before their time runs out. If they succeed, it will be extremely difficult for the Cameroids to unravel, and that's assuming they're even going to try.

For the moment, if you have no children in your house, you are safe. Unless your work or daily life involves any contact at all, at any time, with anyone under 18. So far, they get to you through children. Why do you really think they wanted gay couples to adopt? They've got you too. Also anyone who looks after your children for any period of time. It's now at the stage where, if I see next door's kids waiting in the snow after school for their parents to get home through the Christmas traffic, I'll have no option but to leave them there. The moment they step through the door, in come a thousand government inspectors.

It won't take them long to find a way into childless homes. Children living next door? Better be sure your house won't spontaneously combust and put next door's children at risk. Children living across the street? Best make sure your curtains are up to scratch so they don't inadvertantly see you in the bath. It won't take them long. Remember the days when people left their front doors unlocked? Those days are coming back because if you lock them, the State will batter them down. Why bother with locks when you cannot stop them anyway?

This is what Labour have done to the country and its people. Take a bloody good look, Glasgow North East. You voted for this. YOU voted FOR this.

Those 70% who did not vote, hang your heads. You had the power to slap them down and you stood aside. You could have taken out all four of the idiot bands at once, you couild have relegated Labour, SNP, Lib Dem and Tory to the bottom of the heap and you did nothing. All you needed was an X in a box. Not voting is not a protest. It is submission. Not voting is like standing aside while burglars ransack your house, making them a cup of tea and helping them carry your TV out to the van. Not voting is like starting a game of chess by toppling your king. Not voting sends no message to those in power other than 'Carry on, we don't mind what you do'.

I vote. Every time. I vote for a small party or an independent, never for any of the big parties because to me, they all look the same and they all look very dangerous indeed. Nobody I vote for ever wins. That's not because I wasted my vote. I didn't waste it. I used it. It's because on average, about 60% of people with a vote waste theirs by not using it, then complain when another band of money-grabbing tyrants get in.

These people are getting in on the back of a small percentage of the electorate. If everyone voted, they could be wiped out entirely. Imagine a parliament with not a single Labour, Tory or Lib Dem MP. Imagine it for a while.

Then make it happen. With two strokes of a pencil.

This is disgusting. It's half past one on Sunday morning and I'm sober enough to drive (but not drunk enough to steal a car, so I won't).

I have so much work I'm having to find more and more inventive ways to avoid doing it. None help, it just keeps popping back up on the screen and I'll be in the lab tomorrow again doing even more of it. The silver lining is, of course, that I only get paid when I have work to do and this is Christmas booze cash I'm earning now. After the taxman gets his grubby paws out and I see what's left. Total income for this year is going to be well down on last year and expenses are up. I'd be upset, but hell, it means I'm handing less over to the Labour party for general wastage and that is one seriously cheering thought. Whether I put much effort into boosting business in the next tax year depends on what the Cameroids do, because it looks certain those idiots will take over from the current idiots even though they are doing their best to wreck their chances.

I thought, in sober fashion, of Glasgow North East, because I bet there's nobody sober there right now. Nobody working either, apart from bar staff and nightclub bouncers.

Labour won the by-election. I admit I am disappointed but not surprised. They crow as if it's a great victory but all they did was hold on to what is probably the safest Labour seat in Scotland with a reduced majority. Around 30% of voters bothered to vote. Labour's share was 58% of 30%. Roughly 17% of the people of Glasgow North east actually wanted them in power. Yet they call it a great victory.

The BNP were only a few votes shy of 5% of the vote. In Scotland! Where the BNP is widely seen as an English party and usually struggle around the 2% mark. They were beaten, just, by a doubled Tory vote. Doubled. In Scotland and more particularly in Glasgow North East where they eat Tories deep-fried with chips. The Tories were never going to win there. Neither were the BNP. The extent to which they increased their vote size would alarm any sensible Labourite, but no. They won and that's all they care about. The will of 17% of the people trumps the other 83% and you know what? It's their own fault. Seventy percent of the voters of Glasgow North East could not be bothered to spend a few minutes deciding their own future. Because of that, the 83% who did not vote Labour are now subject to Labour rule.

Labour claim it is a disaster for the SNP. If only. I didn't want them to win either but it was a straight Labour/SNP fight for the top spot and the SNP are slightly less deranged. The SNP failed to take an extremely safe seat from Labour. Well, whoop de diddly do. A failure, yes, but a disaster? A disaster is when you lose a safe seat, not when you fail to take someone else's. Labour will find out what that means when the English start voting because those are the people Labour have dumped on hardest. Their effect is less obvious here because Labour are not fully in charge. The SNP, well, campaigning in Glasgow on a 'we hate smokers and boozers even more than Labour' ticket? In retrospect, not the best move they could have made.

Glasgow North East was won on indolence. Seventy percent of them could not get off their backsides to vote. If that attitude continues we can look forward to another five years of exactly the same thing because we'll get Tory or Labour or Lib Dem next year and I don't think it will make one fleck of a lactose-intolerant's milky diarrhoea of difference to the country. If those three are not ousted we won't even have a country. We will be the EU's Airstrip One. This next election might be the last chance we get to decide our future by peaceful means.

Get the votes in. Get those idiots out. You're only fighting against 17% who are in favour of the current band of morons and that's in a very safe seat indeed. It'll be easy.

If people vote.

The Great Lord of the Universe, Saviour of Money, Ruddernosed Champion of Self Service, has acquired another title.

Not by dint of his wonderful demeanour, nor in appreciation of his honesty and integrity, but, as usual, by Labour playing their dirty tricks behind closed doors.

He is now to be known as -

The Right Honourable Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham, Lord President of the Council, First Secretary of State, and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Honorary Freeman of the borough of Hartlepool.

Or 'Pete' to his pals. I can think of a few other bloggers who would also shorten his name to four letters, albeit four different ones.

The man's name will soon run to two volumes and his business cards must be A4. I would love to see an interview where the interviewer insisted on reciting the whole thing every time he asked a question.

Well, we have months of Labour yet to stand. He might yet reach a 100-word name before the end.

If anyone's wondering where Ranting Rab went on his holidays, here he is working for the Scottish Parliament's web translation service. He's missing and this appears. Coincidence? I think not!

The Scottish Nationalist-led Scottish Executive says official government literature in Scots is needed to ‘prevent discrimination’.

Nothing to do with vote-grabbing in Labourland then?

The Cameroids are in disarray over the central appointment of candidates for election. Seems people prefer to have someone from the area to represent the area. Who'd have thought that? Certainly not the Tories.

The whole 'oooh, she had an affair once' nonsense over Elizabeth Truss is just the tip of it. Nobody really cares about the affair, it's just the only objection anyone can come up with that can't be instantly dismissed by political correctness. The real objection is that she's been foisted onto the consituency and isn't from around there. As one local puts it -

We're having another one foisted on us. People are very touchy and they don't want someone who's only here for the advancement of her career."

There's the real problem, I think. People have had more than enough of politicians whose sole aim in life is to advance their own careers. Whether this is true of this candidate or not is irrelevant. What the voters think on polling day is what matters and if they think she's been sent by Central Office as another career politician, that safe seat might not be quite so safe. Labour needn't get excited by that. It's Tory country and they won't vote Labour. If they switch it'll probably be UKIP.

Sir Jeremy Bagge insists it's not about her gender. He does come across as a monocled great-uncle who huffs 'Women? Wonderful things. I have one myself. Keep 'er in the kitchen.' I'm not convinced it's not all about gender for him. There is a lot of muttering about Cameron's all-women shortlists though, and I think any sort of exclusive shortlist is absolute madness. Why exclude a whole batch of potential candidates on the basis of gender, race or sexual preference? Oh, it might be a seat so safe they could have an all-badger shortlist and still win but would the winning badger be any use? Wouldn't they be better with the otter who has a lot of real-world experience but who was excluded from standing?

All-anything shortlists are just stupid. Supporters of such things will say 'Well, how else are we supposed to get more women/black/Asian/disabled/gay/ex-convict/illegal immigrant/children/poor people as representatives in Parliament?' To which I can only reply 'Why do we need to?'

An MP is supposed to represent an area. Not an ethnic, social or gender group. An area and everyone in it. What that area needs is the best person for the job and no other consideration matters. Whether male or female or both or neither. Whether black, white, brown, yellow, green, blue or transparent. Whether they like to sleep with the opposite sex, the same sex, both, neither, or whether they are avowed onanists. Whether they believe in one god, ten gods, a hundred gods, the Great Being of Eternal Flushing or no god at all. None of it is relevant.

There is only one question. Will they be a good and effective representative of the people of the area? Yes or no are the only answers.

It's the one question no leader of any party is asking. Instead, they decide who to put where based on who they want as a certainty on their green benches, with no regard at all to what the people of the area might want.

If I were in UKIP I'd be watching this whole thing very closely indeed. Maybe even learning from it.

Ed Balls is to get more powers. X-ray vision so he can still see while blinking, the ability to leap tall children with a single bounce, the power to catch bullets with his eyelids (who wants to test that one?) and a shiny Spandex suit with 'Edikayshun Man' written on it.

Not really. He'll have to wait until he's finished his ice lair at the North Pole before he gets those. For the moment he'll have to settle for the power to whack teachers because their little charges aren't learning anything. It doesn't sound much of a power but he can do it from a long way away. He also gets henchmen with this power, dressed in black shirts labelled with 'Thug #1' and so on.

If a school gets a lot of low exam results, it's embarrassing for a government that expects everyone to have at least fifteen A-levels in beer-can-opening, X-factor watching and glossy magazine buying so they are fully prepared for their place in Labour's world. Therefore if they fail it's the teacher's fault for teaching them nonsense about physics, maths and history and expecting them to understand within the 0.05 seconds they pay attention in each class.

There will be no disciplining of the children. That is right out. There will instead be disciplining of the teachers. So if you're thinking about teaching, you should be aware that Balls will attack you from on high, the children will attack you in the classroom and if you make so much as a peep in complaint, the parents will come round and attack you too. Then they'll complain to the Balls Brigade and they'll attack you again. Then you'll get done for child abuse and your CRB check will come up 'Gary Glitter' forever.

In other words, if you're thinking about joining the teaching profession, don't bother. You'll be stuck in between kids who don't want to learn and a system that doesn't want you to teach them. In that system, it is impossible to succeed and failure is your fault.

There is a very simple way to improve the schools. Stop treating children as if they are some kind of holy caste who must never be touched and who can never be wrong. Return actual discipline to schools and if the parents attack the schools for applying it, arrest and charge them for assault. Complaints should not be automatically assumed to be correct. Those proved to be malicious must be removed from the record, not left there as unfounded allegations to haunt a teacher's career for ever.

Unless the core problem - absolute absence of any discipline at all - is addressed, nothing else is going to work. Closing schools moves the problems elsewhere. Adding the lunatic fringe to a well-performing school is going to drag the good one down.

The socialist answer is always the same - they're poor, underpriviliged, and we need to throw money at them. An argument that has been proved to be total cobblers over and over. People cause trouble and the socialists give them more money. What lesson have they learned? Our education monster hasn't grasped it. The lesson is, if you kick up and cause trouble, you get money. If you keep your head down and learn, you don't.

It has nothing to do with money. It has everything to do with looking at your surroundings and thinking 'I can do better than this'. When I was young, that was true, the dole was not a desirable option at all and any job of any kind was better than dole money. Now, with all the attached benefits, all of which are lost as soon as someone says 'Yes' to a job as a burger-bar floor sweeper, it is not so easy to get out of the trap. There's little point in trying when that first job pays the same as benefits, so you're working for the same money as your neighbour who does nothing. Why learn? Why get those qualifications? What are they for? So you can sign on as Joe Scroat, PhD?

There is no discipline so kids can do what they like, and they know it. Those whose families are in work don't know about the benefits trap. Those whose families are long-term unemployed know all about it. They know, and will explain to their kids, that the best way to get on in life is to learn the benefits system because there's no way out of it. Put more money into benefits and the trap gets deeper. The only career available is giropractor.

None of this is even considered by Edikayshun Man and his henchmen. They like to keep people in that benefits trap because, well, look at Glasgow North East. Once they're well and truly stuck, they have no option but to vote to keep it.

How to improve education?

One. Bring back discipline.

Two. Give the kids a reason to learn. Give them a ladder out of that benefit trap by taking £1 off benefits for every £3 earned (numbers might go up or down, this isn't a policy decision). When they lose £1 for every £1 earned, there is no point trying and therefore no point getting qualifications. If they come home better off for working, there's a reason to do it. Eventually they'll be off the benefits altogether.

But then, of course, they won't vote Labour. And that is the sole purpose of every Labour policy ever produced. People will vote for them if they have no choice.

They are not benefactors of the poor. They are imprisoners of the poor.

MEXICAN WAVE

Around 200,000 workers, teachers, students, unionists, farmers and social campaigners shut Mexican cities down on Wednesday (12th) in a national strike against the military backed privatisation of a national power company.

On October 10th, 6000 federal police and soldiers occupied various sites of power company Luz y Fuerza around the country and summarily sacked the 44,000 strong workforce. Martín Esparza, leader of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) said, “They came by night, like bandits, like cowards, and barked an order. They thought that they were going to wipe us out, but here there is the conscience of more than 100 years of the SME movement.”

In Mexico City the day’s 12 hours of action began with a rally outside Luz y Fuerza. With thousands of other protesters assembling around at points around the city, most of the main roads were shut down and blockaded. Students occupied buildings at several universities, provoking an aborted attempt to flush them out by police.

...
Since the plants came under police control, localised blackouts have left parts of Mexico City and other cities and towns without power for hours at a time, with hundreds of factories unable to function.

The government claims Luz y Fuerza was economically non-viable - a financial black hole - with bloated payrolls, inherited jobs and massive pension payouts responsible for $42billion a year subsidies.

The claim is denied by union leaders, who say CFE, which produces 95% of Mexico’s electricty - 45% for private companies, was selling electricity to multinational companies and to Luz y Fuerza at a profit. The government was then forcing Luz y Fuerza to sell that electricity on to other companies and domestic consumers at a lower price.

...you have a dream about two medieval knights standing on a stage, one in a red cape, teaching the audience about RedCloth, and the other in a blue cape, teaching the audience about BlueCloth. Yes, I really had this dream and yes, I do question my sanity. :|

I have often laughed loud and long at all those appeals by the police for anyone who might have photographed a crime to contact them. We are all too aware of how the police regard photographers. Photographers are terrorists or maybe tourists, the authorities no longer make the distinction. They can be stopped and searched and if they are arrested under anti-tourist legislation, their DNA will be stored forever, even where they are immediately released without charge. Not a hope in hell of any job that requires a CRB check, and that will soon mean not a hope in hell of any job other than criminal. So there's no way I'd volunteer information that would implicate me in the new non-crime-but-we'll-get-you-anyway of photography.

Nor would I feed the ducks. I'll eat them, but I won't feed them. That's illegal too. I also won't call the police to my house if I'm in the middle of decorating. That will get you reported to the council. If you have children, you must allow them to run riot in supermarkets because disciplining them is illegal. If you see other people's children acting like the monkey house at feeding time, just enjoy the show. Don't dare intervene, even if they are battering a pensioner, because that will get you a child abuse charge. The law in this country used to be an ass. Now it's a rabid stoat with mental health issues. The best thing to do is keep well away from it.

Even so, I'd have thought that if you found a gun and took it to the police station, they'd still be quite pleased about that. Finding a stray weapon and handing it in must surely be a good and sensible thing to do. Well, it's apparently not a good idea at all.

Via Old Holborn, it seems that if you were to find a gun and take it to the police, you are then in possession of that gun, you have absolutely no defence to that charge, and you will be arrested, convicted and sentenced accordingly. What you planned to do with it is irrelevant to the law. Even though all you planned to do with this illegal weapon is to take it to the police and hand it in, you are in possession of that weapon and you get five years in clink. Automatic. No defence. The jury has no option but to return a guilty verdict because the only thing you are charged with is possession. Did the defendant have the weapon at any time? Yes or no? The defendant does not deny taking it to the police, so the only possible verdict is guilty. The jury has no power to acquit.

If I should ever stumble across any kind of weapon, anywhere, I'm not going to touch it. I'll leave it where it is and proceed in the general direction of 'away'. I will not report it, because even knowing where it is might amount to 'possession', especially towards the end of the month when targets have to be met. I see nothing. I hear nothing. I remember nothing. It's the only way to avoid arrest.

Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to be helpful to the police. It's illegal and they will arrest you for it.

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear? The only time you have nothing to fear is when every aspect of your life is hidden.

It's the Labour way.


UPDATE: Via an anonymous commenter on OH's post, it seems this might be a case of 'we didn't get him last time but...'

It's very hard to feel sympathy for a lawyer.

This one just lost her £150,000 job because her DNA is on the national database.

She must have done something terrible, surely? Well, it turns out she hasn't done anything at all. She's one of those who was arrested but not charged, but her DNA is on file anyway. Her employer's check showed that her DNA was on file for an unfounded allegation, and they sacked her.

That's her crime - being on the database. So, I wonder how keen Paul Flynn, a Labour MP in Newport, is to be on that database? He's one of the loudest 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear' shouters out there. He has commiited no crime so being on the database holds no fear for him. So he says. He has yet to prove that.

Simply being on the database can get you fired. Even if you are never charged with anything. Even if the heinous crime you were arrested for amounts to trying to get your child into a good nursery, and you weren't even charged with that. Even if you're a high-powered City lawyer. Is it any wonder that the rest of us aren't too happy about it?

This must be good news though, surely? Now it's affected a high-flying lawyer, she'll champion the anti-snooper cause and get all those innocents off the database. Well, no.

Ms Elliott was just about to take up working on the government's own national identity card scheme which required the routine checks to be made before she was 'cleared' for the role.
But she is now fighting Home Office red tape to have her name removed from the database as an 'exceptional case' - and relaunch her legal career.

No, she's only interested in herself. To hell with the rest of us. She wants to work on a national database so she needs the rest of us on it. She just doesn't want to be on it herself. Everyone else is going to suffer exactly what she has just suffered, and yet her goal is to help run the very system she's just been ruined by.

It's very hard indeed to feel any sympathy for this particular lawyer.

So I won't.

UPDATE: The story has mysteriously vanished. Already. Winston Smith must be in overdrive.

UPDATE2: Longrider has a link to a Telegraph copy of the story that hasn't been cut yet.

I'm losing count. I think it's 11 weeks on Saturday. Last week I missed a post. Whoops.

Still haven't burned out any parts. The magic box that holds a battery, spare atomiser and two loaded tips is great but if you don't use the tips, they dry out and have to be reloaded. That might not apply if you use ready-loaded tips because they're in sealed plastic bags. The magic box charges in 4 hours on a USB line, which is no problem if you're on the computer anyway. You can also use those plugs you buy for phones that have a USB socket, a line and a set of connectors. It uses the mini-USB connector, the one you use for some Motorola phones.

One thing to watch with the magic box is that if you leave a battery in there for too long it'll kill the box battery. They need to be swapped around. Normally the box is good for at least three battery charges but it's trickle-charging all the time so while there's an electrofag battery in place, the box battery is running down. I've been at home a lot, writing reports, so didn't use the box but left a battery in there. Best leave the battery out of the box until you're going out.

The magic box is a cool gadget. It's about the size and shape of a 10-cigarette pack and opens the same way. Inside are The Bits To Make Electrofag. Just don't leave it in your pocket for days with a battery loaded.

Another thing - spare atomisers come with a dummy tip attached. Leave that on in the magic box or the atomiser rattles around.

I haven't spent one further penny on Electrofag for about a month. I still have plenty of smoking juice, haven't burned out an atomiser (that's luck, the ones I've been using are well past their guaranteed lifespan) and haven't ruined a battery. It's working out, so far, way cheaper than tobacco. However, if we were to take the punitive taxes out of the equation, it might not look so good.

Then again, next time a pal comes back from overseas with a box of baccy, a combination of Electrofag and tobacco is going to be very cheap indeed.

That cheap baccy will last twice as long as before. That'll be twice as long without paying taxes to people who encourage violence and revulsion against me.

There is no downside.


Next weekend is three months. Any gadget that last that long becomes a fixture. I've had laptops that didn't make it that far.

Burning our Money has an excellent round-up of rage. The Gorgon's immigration idiocy, the waste of money, the bonuses given to those who kill our soldiers while those who deal with money lose theirs, and why it's a really stupid idea to demand that all nurses have degrees.

All in one post. I have nothing to add to any of it.

Notes augmented

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LiveJournal Cares

We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.

In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.

Papered in postcards

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.

Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!

Photos of the week

We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.

You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week!

I had planned to rant about the mysterious 'council official' who fined a woman for feeding the ducks. However, Al-Jahom has it covered. The Telegraph article has no photos but the Mail has a close-up of what the official wrote down as the reason for the fine. The crime defined is 'throwing bread for birds'. That's illegal now. Someday soon, one of these people will be found floating in that pond. If I see it happen, I didn't see a thing.

The format of such stories is always the same. An anonymous uniformed arse does something indefensively stupid and the authorities defend it as quite right and proper. No apology is ever forthcoming. No official is ever disciplined. Nobody is to blame other than the poor sap who has to take the fine for something that's been deemed illegal on the spur of the moment by someone who should not be entrusted with the care of a compost heap.

The only way I will ever accept any kind of fine from anyone is if they can show me their ID. I don't mean a flash of a card that could be a bus pass. I mean show me ID that I can read the name on. I want that name. No name, no ID, I don't believe you are genuine and will not accept the paper. If I'm ever in a position to talk to the newspapers about some idiotic council moron i will not say 'council official'. I will give them that name. The papers are good at tracking people down and getting photos of them.

The uniform means nothing. Anyone can dress up in a uniform. Demand ID or it's no fine. They are ordering you around and demanding money, they have to prove they have the right to do that. Get the name. Remember it. Name these people. If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear.

Anyway, I let the duck story slide because I found a funnier one.

Autumn leaves are now litter. Expect to see fixed penalty notices pinned to offending trees soon, or more likely to the door of anyone who has a deciduous tree in their garden. These leaves cannot be composted, they must be deemed irretrievable rubbish and sent to landfill. Something that recycles naturally without anyone sorting it into any bins is taking up landfill space, while the rest of us have to sort the bottles and tins so that we don't put so much in landfill... does your head hurt yet? Try not to think about it too hard. Your councils and government aren't thinking about it at all.

Councils say they are unable to compost even those from otherwise clean suburban streets because of fears they may be “contaminated” with rubbish and cigarette ends.

Oooh, cigarette ends. Guess what cigarettes are made of? Leaves. The filters? Cellulose. That's the stuff leaves are made of. It's entirely compostable. Especially when mixed with the plant material it originated from. It won't make your nasturtiums into nicotine addicts. You won't find your dahlias having a quick puff behind the shed. The amount of tobacco involved when you sweep up a few fag-ends with a ton of leaves is trivial. It will have no effect on the composting process and there will be no detectable nicotine in the final product. There will be absolutely zero uptake of nicotine by your vegetables. Zero.

However those collected from parks and gardens can be used to make “food grade” compost because they are more likely to be litter free.

Parks and gardens have no litter? Really? When the wind blows on bin day, every garden around here looks like landfill. And what, precisely, is 'food grade' compost? Who eats the stuff? They must mean 'free of toxins' such as the terrible, terrible traces of tobacco. They do not, of course, separate yew or laburnum from those leaves they pick up in the park. Those toxins are just fine. They are, of course, nothing to worry about because they will be degraded in the compost almost as fast as a tobacco residue and since you don't eat compost, they aren't important.

A spokesman said: “Councils aren’t doing this because they enjoy throwing leaves into landfill, they would not be doing it if there was any other choice.”

There is a choice. In my shed there's a round thing with holes in. I call it a 'sieve' and I use it to get the twigs and other crap out of compost so I plant things in a good fine lump-free material. Compost the crappy leaves and then use a big shaking sieve to get out any cans or bottles that might have gone in with them. If they are so desperately concerned that a smoker might have contaminated them, sell it as low-grade compost for flower beds, marked 'not for food-growing use'. I don't believe it makes a scrap of difference but people stupid enough not to realise that tobacco is made of leaves will regard it as vitally important. So I'd buy the cheaper low-grade stuff all the time.

It's not about the leaves, though, is it? It's all about the only thing this government cares about at all.

It means that local authorities in England and Wales are paying up to £1.5 million collectively in landfill tax every year just to dispose of autumn leaves, it is estimated.

An estimated figure with a lot of zeros after it. What could be coming next? Smokers are contaminating that lovely compost and must pay more to compensate. Anyone caught littering should have their house emptied and their bank accounts frozen. That guy who dropped the (also compostable) match should be bankrupted. He's costing us all money!

These council officials will never stop litter. They target someone who drops a match or someone who throws bread to ducks. They will never approach the hoodied horde dropping their plastic takeaway trays or the rowdy drunks leaving cans and bottles lying around everywhere. Never. That lone guy smoking - watch him like a hawk, he might drop the end on the floor. The gang shouting and shoving people and leaving a trail of debris, no, leave them, they might get rough. The litter will never stop because nobody is really trying to stop it. They are out collecting fines from easy targets.

One day, that 'easy target' they pick will prove to be the local psychotic madman. I hope I'm around when that happens.

Of course, I'd never be able to identify the guy who pulverised the Stasi official and impaled him on that car aerial. It all happened so fast.

Still, he can go in the compost so he won't be wasted.